The rhinos of this park are very good at staying away from roads and though the entire park is nothing but a spider web of dirt roads, the rhinos would remain right in the center of the divided areas, never providing a good location to take pictures.
This national park doesn’t have any herds of wildebeests, but there are a few that wander around, staying near zebra or buffalo herds. There is always an oxpecker or egret around these animals.
A zebra pruning the grass.
One of the many type of ground based fowl in Kenya, BUC Chamberlain will have to help me with the name.
We came across three zebras, all of which had some type of animal attack wound. These three had been segregated from the rest of the herd, all knowing that their time was nearly up. It would be only a short time until a big cat would get these three.
We circled back towards the forested area, where we have always had luck seeing animals, and CDR Fetters spotted this lioness wandering the plain. The Kswahili word for a single head is ‘kitua’, which is the slang that the safari drivers use for lions as you normally only see their head poking up from the high grass. For months I have heard our drivers ask other safari drivers if they have seen kitua, and finally we saw one before the other drivers. We followed this lioness for about a km before she stopped in an area of high grass.
That is when her two cubs clambered out from underneath a bush and joined her.
We watched for nearly 45 minutes as this mother and her cubs had tender moments, roughhoused, suckled, and the two cubs fought (over anything). I was sitting on the sill of the window, shooting pictures across the roof.
Because I was shooting from this spot, I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on behind me. Another lioness came up quietly behind me, and it wasn’t even 15 feet away when my driver (also sitting on the window sill) saw her walking our way, and told me to quickly get inside. By the time I swung me and the Nikon inside the car and started getting the window up, she was right at the window sniffing upwards… far too close for comfort. If she had run to get me, she would have had me for a snack.
After she wandered off, we resumed taking pictures of the lioness and her cubs. The cubs were suckling on her as she stands watch.
They finally started to wander off in the direction of the forest. We left them alone and headed back towards where the rhinos were.
This time we were fortunate enough to see this rhino by the road, but as we got close, it charged off. You could audibly hear the solid thuds of its hooves as it ran off, at nearly 100m away. I would love to hear/feel an entire herd stampeding.
We ran across the lioness again on our way out. She went onto the road and walked behind our car, but her two cubs were too scared. They were so animated in trying to be brave enough to follow, swatting eachother and meowing to their mother. They would run out, then run back into the safety of the high grass. Mom got annoyed and roared, which I wish I had captured on video.
A wary little one, watching us carefully.
They finally struggled through some high grass and bushes, calling to the mother the entire time until they finally bounded onto the road and raced after her. Only to dive into the safety of the grass as this matatu approached.
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